


Bedside Manner

by BritaniaVance



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 21:10:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1564178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BritaniaVance/pseuds/BritaniaVance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arden Cousland is plagued with nightmares but finds that someone who might be more than a friend might help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bedside Manner

“You’re my darling girl, and I love you pup,” her father said through a cloud of indiscernible, billowing smoke. Arden could barely see his blood stained teeth, a splash of scarlet staining ivory shimmering through the mist.

A gnarled hand held her shoulder, claws lightly piercing her as they rested, one by one, taking their hold.

“She will come with us, and I promise she will be kept safe. Arden will fulfill a greater purpose,” a voice resonated over her shoulder. She knew the spindle-like claws did not belong to Duncan, and yet as she turned her head she still expected him there, hovering over her, offering her refuge and a life of meaning. Instead her eyes met with a serpent, whose form was smoke itself, pearlescent and shimmering in the din, yet thick and black with soot.  
  
The Fade folded around her, and her father fell away, her mother calling out for her as flame settled overhead like thunderclouds rolling in on the horizon. Highever castle disintegrated before her eyes and the serpent smiled. Its claws dug deeper, now lightly piercing her skin through her leathers. Pearls of blood beaded a grisly constellation on her shoulder.  
  
“It is almost time for the feast,” the voice announced, now sounding less like Duncan, but like a thousand voices in varying timbres and tones all at once, a chorus of cacophony, howling and singing, whispering and screaming in unison. “This is what was promised.”  
  
Its teeth were bared in a maniacal and ghastly reassuring grin. Arden nodded; her body felt like lead, as if she were fast turning into a statue, fixing her feet to the earth to become an unwilling bystander for all eternity; a mere pair of eyes to the endless slaughter. The clouds of fire rolled forth and swallowed the sky, the earth blackening beneath it, tendrils poisoning and consuming what green and ruined stone remained of Highever.  
  
The serpent began to laugh in its world of voices, and she looked out over the devastated land to avoid its permanent grin. She could see faceless men scrambling from the tainted earth toward her, caught between the Blight and the Demon itself. She filled her lungs with air to scream to them, warn them to turn back, to fight. Yet her lungs were empty, her mouth ash, and she was already made of stone.  
  
“This is what was promised,” the voices reminded her, as if it were cooing a calming lullaby to soothe her through sleep and let it all wash over her, accepting… She tried to gather breath. Her mind raced with words she could not speak and her throat began to catch with burning embers as her lips clamored against her silence…  
  
Arden awoke coughing, her skin blanketed in a cold sweat. Startled by the sudden solidness of the ground and the dew-caked grass before her now waking eyes, she breathed in deeply and exhaled before resuming her coughing. Her throat must have grown dry from the fire which was still ablaze by her feet. A face rose above it in curious concern as Arden cleared her throat, her tongue lazing at her dry mouth.  
  
The face soon focused into Alistair’s and grew closer, a flask held before him as he approached. Arden reached for it, nodding her head in thanks, as Alistair knelt at her makeshift bedside.  
  
“It’s the nightmares,” he stated, he needn’t asked. He watched her sip from the canister, his lips pursed, “I’ve had them pretty bad these past few nights, myself. You never quite get used to them.”  
  
“Reassuring,” Arden heard herself say, her voice still hoarse. She took another sip. “Is your bedside manner always this bleak?” She smiled as she put the canister to her lips.  
  
“Ooh, my dreams of being a cleric have been squashed,” he grimaced as if her retort actually hurt, before. Their eyes locked for a moment, before Alistair took back the canister and pretended to examine it for any altercations Arden may have made in the moments it was in her hands.  
  
“At least I’m not the only one.” Arden said referring to the nightmares, taking the rough woolen blanket from her legs and draping about her shoulders. She got to her feet and inhaled deeply again, taking in the damp scents of the forest at night that lingered amidst the dry smoke from the fire, trying to cleanse her mind of the images that plagued her sleep.  
  
“You had dreams of being a cleric, too?!” Alistair exclaimed, masking whatever pain he felt in humor as always. He got up from his knee and scanned the perimeter of the camp’s grove, wiping the dirt from his trousers. Arden shuffled past him and made to steal the seat he had been keeping watch at only to find a solitary rose lying on the burlap.  
  
“Oh, er,” Alistair stammered, his eyes must have traveled to where Arden was, and he hurried to her side as if it were some stolen good he needed to explain the disappearance of, “Do you, hah, do you know what this is?”  
  
Alistair picked up the rose gingerly, twirling it nervously in his fingers with a crooked grin on his face. Arden’s lips curled into a smile as she saw his cheeks grow red in the firelight.  
  
“Is … this a trick question?” she asked, the smirk having yet to leave her lips as she took the seat beside him instead.  
  
“Yes, absolutely, I am trying to trick you. Is it working?”  
  
Stray strands of hair fell into her eyes as she watched Alistair talk much too fast, twirling about as if he forgot where his seat had gotten to before finally sitting down.  
  
“I almost had you, didn’t I?” He laughed nervously, his eyes downcast as his face grew redder. Arden watched him, his dirty blonde hair almost as red as his face in the firelight, and smiled.  
  
“Nightmares or no, I think you should sleep next,” she chuckled, “But I have noticed you thumbing something for a while now. I’m assuming it’s this,”  
  
Her laugh quieted on her lips as she watched him. Alistair’s eyes were fixed on the rose still twirling in his fingers as if he were examining a dagger. His amber eyes flitted between Arden and the flower, before he finally settled on keeping eye contact. Arden could feel her skin prickle with warmth, and she had a feeling it wasn’t just from the fire.  
  
“I picked it in Lothering.” He said finally, slowly at first. “I remember thinking, ‘how could something so beautiful exist in a place with so much despair and ugliness?’” he looked back at the rose, averting his gaze as if he were too bashful to keep looking her in the eye, though Arden admitted she liked it when he did. She bit her lip at the thought.  
  
“I probably should have left it alone, but I couldn’t. The darkspawn would come and their taint would just destroy it. So I’ve had it ever since,” his voice was soft, almost melancholy as he spoke, though his speech was now directed at the flower itself. Arden inched closer and admired it along with him. It was particularly stunning. Its petals were deep, flushed red, the kind of red that marks a particularly choice apple from the High orchards come Frumentum, adorned with golden leaves marking the harvest season. The flower in Alistair’s hands had bloomed like a rose only found in a painting, perfectly poised and stoic, ready to have its portrait taken.  
  
“It’s a beautiful sentiment,” Arden heard herself say softly, recalling Leliana’s vision, who had relayed her holy dream to her as they began to take to the Imperial Highway, leaving Lothering behind until it became a single stack of slow billowing smoke in the distance. Flashes of the town emerged from her memory as she admired the flower now: a tourney she attended when she was ten, Fergus chasing her through the corn stalks, leading them to come across a training camp of Templar recruits just outside the town overlooking a field of purple lupines in a sea of golden wheat. Images of Fergus’ face taunting her naturally inspired a witty comment, and as she spoke she realized she was not much different than Alistair for masking emotion with crude jokes.  
  
“Or what, feeling a bit thorny now, are we?” Arden donned her most exaggerated smoldering gaze as she elbowed Alistair suggestively, inspiring an eruption of nervous laughter.  
  
“Wow,” he exclaimed, eyes widening as they averted their gaze toward the fire, and Arden could swear even Alistair’s ears turned scarlet, “’She’ll never see through that one’, I told myself, but boy was I wrong.”  
  
Arden laughed along with him, now feeling equally nervous though she was unsure as to why, exactly. Their smiles faded and Alistair continued to thumb the rose anxiously, running a finger lightly along the edge of a thorn.  
  
“I thought that I might,” Alistair began again, meeting Arden’s gaze once more, and a sudden seriousness overcame him “that I might give it to you, actually,”  
  
His gaze was steady, though Arden could see the innocent uncertainty lingering behind his eyes, eagerly searching hers. Alistair’s gaze did not waver from hers this time, and that warmth returned, warming her limbs like a glass of wine on an empty stomach.  
  
“In a lot of ways, I think the same thing when I look at you,” Alistair’s voice was even, low and steady, as his amber eyes remained fixed on her dark ones, gentle yet eager with nervous energy, “I was just thinking, here I am doing all this complaining, and you haven’t had a good time of it yourself. Not at all. Aside from the nightmares, I know an unimaginable thing brought you here, and you haven’t even the chance to have any of the good experiences of being a Grey Warden. Not a word of thanks or congratulations… it’s all been death and fighting and… tragedy.”  
She could feel herself say his name, at a loss for words, before he continued hastily, the purpose not yet gone from his eyes as he shifted closer to her, their knees now touching as he took her hand and placed the flower in her palm.  
  
“I thought maybe...” he breathed deeply, and his eyes finally left hers, focusing on the rose in her hand, not yet removing his own as he allowed his thumb to grace the soft cushion of her palm, “maybe I could say something, tell you what a rare and beautiful thing you are, amidst all this… this darkness.”

Arden’s limbs suddenly weighed nothing and she felt as if she were transparent, hanging mist merely hovering near Alistair and his intent gaze. His eyes met hers sidelong, her mouth agape. She could see Alistair’s lips twitch, flitting in and out of a nervous smirk. Words had escaped her completely and the weightless intoxication she felt spread from the core of her being outward to each of her limbs, immobilizing her. She recognized this feeling, the feeling she felt so utterly bereft of whenever her mother would flaunt another suitor before her or succeed at slipping the names of single noblemen into conversation. The feeling she did feel when she was sixteen, stealing glances and finding any reason to mistakenly brush hands with the much older Nathaniel Howe, who only showered her with compliments to see Fergus go red in the face. The feeling that overcame her, momentarily, when she caught Ser Gilmore’s easy smile as she glanced at him over her shoulder, her bow poised, her arrow ready. The feeling when she caught Alistair watching her, admiring her, and averting his eyes and scratching the back of his neck once Arden noticed. The feeling that made her feel light, like a marionette on strings, watching Alistair squirm and blush at her bawdy jokes. The feeling of simply being near Alistair, the comfort of knowing he was nearby and that he was keeping watch, and that she was doing the same.  
  
“It was, er, probably just a stupid impulse,” he looked sheepishly up at her, “but I don’t know, was it the wrong one?”  
  
A moment passed but Arden’s eyes never left Alistair’s, her voice still missing. His mouth motioned to allow more words to pass, ever fearful of silence as always, when Arden found her left hand reaching for his stubbled jaw and drew it close. Alistair managed to mumble nonsense syllables as Arden’s lips met the warm hollow of his cheek. She could feel his skin grow hot beneath her fingers; she felt his mouth twitch in submission to another sheepish smile.  
  
She pulled away after a few lingering moments, remaining close to him, her hand yet to leave his blushing face. Arden could not even recall what dream had plagued her, but she silently thanked the Maker that it awoke her for this. Absently, her fingers brushed along Alistair’s jaw when she finally withdrew but she found she could not move away. Her body hummed with an anxious energy and yet there was comfort in it, immense comfort. It was a feeling Arden had feared would no longer return to her, and yet here it was, overcoming her and swallowing her nightmares in its wake.  
  
“I take that back,” she said, in tired sing-song. She laughed when Alistair’s hand rushed to his cheek where her lips had been only moments before, “No, no. About your bedside manner, I mean,” she said through a sleepy snicker.  
  
Alistair’s entire body seemed to relax with sudden relief at her words as his eyes searched her face in eagerly, but soon succumbed to the mounting calm that followed her accolade. Arden watched the orange flames dance in Alistair’s amber eyes, not soft as they were in daylight but fiery with the reflection of the bonfire, looking at her with intent.  
  
Without thinking, she felt herself submit to the warmth as she leaned into Alistair, resting her head on his shoulder, her eyelids like paperweights. He stiffened at first, though remained silent, but slowly surrendered, yielding to her weight, cradling her in the nook of his arm. She could feel him reach around her and pull her in closer, his other hand plucking the rose from her fingers and placing it gently in the messy braid she had neglected to fix upon waking up. Arden felt Alistair laugh gently against her before his fingers graced the fabric over her waist in a gentle back and forth as she felt his head rest on hers. A soundless sleep swept over her like none she had had since leaving the Cousland estate.

It wasn’t Highever, but this could be home.


End file.
